Leadership & Team Coaching for Veterinary Hospitals
Evidence-based Coaching Powered by Clinical Psychology, Cornell, and Harvard Leadership Best-practices.
The Challenge: Helping Animals Versus Running a Business
Passion and performance is crushed by stress, overwhelm & burn-out
While you and your team are passionate about helping animals, you find yourself swamped and barely able to keep your heads above water. Lacking skills on how to cope with stress can have long-term detrimental effects on your team and performance.
Grief and compassion fatigue are real problems
As a vet, you regularly have to make tough decisions. While you want to help every animal, some are beyond your help and others have owners who aren’t willing to do what’s necessary. This emotional toll can build over time and cause real problems.
Conflict, difficult team dynamics, and lack of leadership skills
Managing a team requires skills that aren’t being taught in vet school. Conflicts easily arise when under pressure. Difficult personalities can harm the team dynamics. Do you have the skills to deal with all these difficult situations?
Ineffective strategic planning and time use
Another example of skills never taught in vet school: strategic planning and time management. The former is critical to align your team behind a common goal while the latter ensures efficient execution. When was your last strategic planning session?
Addressing “fires” to the detriment of long-term growth.
Last but not least, we have all been guilty of this one. Especially in vet clinics, there are always unexpected circumstances. In fact, there are so many, that we forget about our long-term goals. How much do your work on your business versus in your business?
The Solution: Master These Leadership Skills
Build skills to increase resilience, leadership, and overall performance
Master and apply evidence-based psychology and coaching skills that will help you and your team better cope with stress, anxiety, and burnout. Everyone will learn how to recognize “red flags” and how to respond before the situation gets worse.
Recognize and resolve conflicts quickly and effectively
Conflict resolution is a powerful skill for professional and personal purposes. Learn how to have respectful and constructive conflicts that will move the team and business forward. And learn how to recognize “troublemakers” who you may have to let go of.
Design and communicate your long-term strategy
I am sure you have certain long-term goals for your vet clinic. Let’s map them out and align your team and activities with those long-term goals. Plan for regular check-ins to ensure you are still on track and are hitting the marks you have set out for your business.
Balancing immediate needs with long-term growth
Establish new routines with your team to balance the focus between short-term, urgent situations versus long-term strategic activities.
Develop evidence-based leadership skills
As your team grows, you will need to apply these new leadership skills over and over. Either have one of your current team leaders or an external, fractional partner be in charge of People Development & Learning to ensure long-term continuity and success.
4 Elements of Better Performance
Company Culture
We will assess current patterns and behaviors that need to change to get your organization back on track. This includes developing and hiring talent, clarifying and acting on values, and celebrating each other.
Individual Performance
We will teach select team members best practices to better manage stress, anxiety, grief, compassion fatigue, time management, boundaries, and more.
Team Dynamics
We will teach tools to better handle conflict, communicate more effectively, deal with power struggles and procrastination to improve internal team performance as well as external client interactions.
Leadership Skills
We will work with your leadership team to align on your vision, develop KPIs, support strategic planning, manage time, hold staff accountable and motivate your team.
With a Proven & Effective Approach
Phase 1
Evaluation & Strategic Planning
GET CLARITY
Daily fires and stressors prevent leaders from setting and executing a long-term strategy with their teams.
During this evaluation and planning phase, we work with your key leaders to develop and align on such a strategy.
We also diagnose and evaluate the biggest hurdles standing in your way and what it takes to effectively overcome them.
Phase 2
Implementation & Execution
TAKE ACTION
Following the evaluation and strategic planning, it is time to take action.
Individual sessions focus on personal development, such as communication & leadership skills as well as stress & anxiety coping skills.
Team sessions focus on alignment, constructive conflict resolution, and team culture.
Phase 3
Long-Term Team Support
MAINTAIN & GROW
With your leadership and team aligned, there are now two options for long-term sustainable success.
1) Train one of your leaders to take charge of Leadership Development, or
2) Have a Bespoke coach become your Fractional Director of Leadership Development to ensure alignment and success with new hires as your practice grows.
Skills You & Your Team Will Master
Personal Management and Leadership Skills
- Defining your leadership style
- How to prevent and manage burnout/exhaustion
- Dealing with anxiety and stress
- Increasing confidence
- Processing grief and other difficult emotions
- Boundaries and self-care
Interpersonal and Team Dynamics Skills
- How to communicate effectively and respectfully
- How to prevent, de-escalate, and decompress from conflict
- Identifying and understanding your own vs others’ personality types and communication styles
- Improve management of difficult clients and recurring stressful situations
- Improve teamwork and role fit
High-Performance Leadership Training
- Diagnosing team problems/patterns
- Assess and improve motivation
- Vision/mission/values alignment
- Understand and utilize a variety of leadership roles
- Group decision making
- Root cause analysis of underperformance
- Strategic planning and execution
Frequently Asked Questions
"How much does this vet-med leadership & team coaching program cost?”
The program cost varies depending on the size of your team and the involvement of our team.
In some cases, we work with clinics on an hourly basis versus in other cases it makes more sense to discuss a monthly flat fee to allow for more flexibility.
I am curious to learn more about your team and your goals, so I can give you a more detailed cost estimate.
"How long does it take before we get to see results?"
It typically takes about 4 weeks to interview the leadership and team members and get clarity on the most common challenges and strategic goals.
Individual and team coaching success very much depend on each individual’s motivation and willingness to do “the work”.
Hence, the first noticeable improvements may happen within a matter of weeks or a few months, depending on your team’s involvement in the process.
“We're already super swamped. How much time do we need to dedicate for this program?”
This program is designed for busy, high-achieving leaders and teams, just like yours. Generally, we will meet via Zoom for 60-minutes per person, two to four times a month.
Between sessions, you will have a range of options for how much work you want to do. You can choose according to your bandwidth and spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours between sessions.
We will align team sessions as best as possible with your existing team meetings as to minimize scheduling complications.
“Will this program take place online or in person?”
The program is designed to take place 100% over Zoom, WhatsApp, and Email.
If your clinic is within driving distance of our Santa Barbara office, we may also include occasional in-person sessions.
“My employee is struggling. I want him/her to feel supported and happy in his/her role. Can you help?”
YES! We love working with leadership to help with employee performance and satisfaction. Often employees feel overwhelmed and burned out.
Providing skills to manage stress, anxiety, and connect with the meaning within their role often leads to much higher levels of work satisfaction and performance.
How We Get Started
STEP 1: Let’s see if we are a good fit
We only work with teams where we feel 100% confident that we can have a substantial positive impact. As much as you will evaluate us during our initial consultations, we will evaluate you and your team to ensure that we all have what it takes to deliver tangible successes for your team. At this stage we will co-create a proposal that fits everyone’s needs.
STEP 2: Scope of work
Once we decide to work together, it’s time to put our proposal into action. We will start by working with your key leaders to fully map out the individual and team challenges they would like to focus on. This will inform team workshops as well as high-performance leadership skills training.
STEP 3: Accountability
Accountability is critical in coaching work and goes both-ways. We will hold you and your team accountable for putting the new practices and strategy into action.
Vice versa you will hold us accountable for delivering tangible value and improvements to your vet teams performance. Scheduled performance reviews assist in this process.
STEP 4: Support
In addition to individual session and group workshops, our team will be available to provide support in-between sessions as well. This includes a certain level of emergency support, so that we can be there for you and your team when it is needed most.
Meet The Founder
Crystal Stokes
Crystal Stokes, designed this program as part of her mission to contribute to the health and happiness of animals and the people who serve them. As a fervent animal lover and human-psychology-performance professional she honored the intersection of her interests through the creation of Bespoke: Vet Med; a coaching company that connects talented and effective coaches with vet-med leadership teams and individuals.
Crystal’s innovative approach is derived from her training from Cornell in High-Performance Leadership, Master’s in Counseling Psychology, CoActive Performance Coach Training, clinical training in ERP, DBT, Polyvagal, EMDR and Enneagram certifications, 15+ years experience as an ACE Certified Medical Exercise and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, and experiences as a veterinary technician and director of operations for several companies.
Contact us today to learn more about our programs and packages.
Schedule a free consultation
